


where demons fear to tread (because it hurts their toesie-woesies)

by sharkplant



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris | Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Location Inappropriate Piggybacks, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 08:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19764448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkplant/pseuds/sharkplant
Summary: There was a bit of fuss, but nothing was very distinct.‘-just stay still, Angel. Hup!’‘Yes well, ow! Mind your hips.’‘Pass me the camera. Rightio then. Mush!’‘Really…’A bubble of laughter floated along the line. But Grace didn’t get a chance to see the cause. She looked back to her camera.





	where demons fear to tread (because it hurts their toesie-woesies)

**Author's Note:**

> I leapt off from [this beautiful diving board](https://gingerhaole.tumblr.com/post/186151362027/a-paris-holiday-crowley-would-regret-this-even) because Notre Dame makes you _feel_ stuff (even if you aren't a 6000-year-old angel who has a complicated relationship to G*d, and rather a 22-year-old person who has a complicated relationship to G*d)
> 
> Edit: title changed to reflect the obvious joke opportunity i originally missed

Grace's feet ached. The old city’s patchwork of cobbled streets and asphalt weren’t kind on modern shoes, and because her alarm hadn’t gone off, and her hostel roommates hadn’t turned in until 2am, she’d had to wait for nearly an hour to get a look in at Sainte Chapelle. She was glad though the walk between the two churches was so short, and the line into Notre Dame was moving at a lukewarm shuffle. It was a long line, snaking around the square; the newly renovated church had only been open to the public for about a month.

She’d been flicking through her camera library when the line halted, nearly bumping her into the Mickey Mouse backpack of the person ahead of her. 

There was a bit of fuss at the top of the line, but nothing was very distinct. 

'-did I agree to this?'

‘Just stay still, Angel. Hup!’

‘Yes well, ow! Mind your hips.’ 

‘Pass me the camera. Rightio then. _Mush!_ ’

‘Really…’

A bubble of laughter floated along the line. But Grace didn’t get a chance to see. She looked back to her camera.

The line shuffled forward.  
***  
Grace was gazing into the stone cut face of Joan D’Arc, the early consideration of tears prickling at her eyes when she thinks she sees the cause of the kerfuffle before.

She needs to quash the rush of _something_ , laughter or maybe a loud sob? Shouldn’t do either because this is a holy and consecrated place. Rather the scene before her shouldn’t have been the case either, for the same reasons.

While piggybacks in Notre Dame weren’t uncommon among the two-to-six age-bracket and their parents, surely someone in their early 40’s would have a little more decorum. Not that he was conducting himself _badly_ per se, just not in the normal way many people wandered around Notre Dame. He was a spindly man, ankles locked tight around the middle of another, just the ish side of portly. They were opposites in every way; dark modern clothes against paler, more vintage ones; flame-red hair and incandescent-white that glowed faintly catching the candlelight.

And while it was sweet they were holding one hand, the one on the back had a wind-up tourist camera that he rewound, pointed, clicked and repeated, as if more for the experience of being a tourist than actually taking decent shots --Perhaps they would develop blurry in an artistic way. More likely they would develop poorly, like haphazard point and click shots. Who was to say[1]. The juxtaposition got carried mostly by the other man as he gazed up into the newly painted ceiling and then beyond it somehow, tears rolling down his cheeks and sniffing.

‘What’s wrong, angel?’ The red-head murmured into the other’s snow-white hair.

‘It’s just a little much.’ He sighed and gripped the other’s hand a little tighter. Grace was suddenly aware she had been staring, turning away she caught the lankier of the two pocketing the camera and pulling out a travel pouch of tissues, tugging one free and dabbing at the corners of his chariot’s eyes. 

‘We can go anytime.’ 

The pale man laughed quietly. ‘Oh thank you, my dear.’

‘I looked it up, there’s a cafe around the corner that does assorted meringues as big as your face. Wide variety of teas too.’

‘That does sound nice…’

‘Shall we on then?’

The man in the beige coat leaned his head back and took a deep breath -‘Let’s'- And started to wander them out of the church. A few stray tourists gawked as they went out, and security relaxed from their uncertainty about how to respond now they were extracting themselves from the building. 

Grace’s heart swelled despite the ridiculous scene. You didn’t see a love like that every day. But where better than in Paris.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Aziraphale found the camera after they returned home and had the photos developed. Most of them were washes of aged brown and yellow light. Though there was a fuzzy bird’s eye shot of joined hands. He had a print of that one framed to hang on the wall in the shop.  
> _____________  
>  ~~would Adam putting everything how it was have also fixed notre dame???? *thinkyface emoji*~~
> 
> I've been writing something Serious and Angsty post-Armage-didn't but turns out if you have silly ideas like this they write themselves so yeet. [servicetopcrowley](https://www.servicetopcrowley.tumblr.com) is my gomens dedicated blog if you have requests/prompts. kudos and comments are my lifeblood and I treasure each and every one.


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